Analysis of To Die For You
C Y Gopinath 1952 (Kottayam)
I do not know what it is like to die for you.
I am too young.
I saw too little.
I shed no blood.
I took no pain.
No wisdom guides my vision,
No ideals quicken my stride.
I see but little, I expect but much, I receive mere pittances,
And my voice has always been quick to rise
In anger.
And I wonder what it would be like to die for you.
I do not know what it is like to cry for you.
I am too dry.
I saw no death.
I shed no tears.
I took no refuge.
But suddenly on an avenue I saw a man afire,
An old man,
Dignified, wise, without malice, a lover of children,
Put to the torch by some young men with idle hands.
And I wondered what it would be like to cry for you.
I do not know what it is like to lie for you.
I am too guileless.
I behold no phantoms.
I harbour no illusions.
I take no umbrage.
But I have seen your eyes grow opaque with lies.
I have seen your children twitch and, twitching, die,
And I have seen your mothers reach out and cry.
Your history vandalised.
Your artists brutalised.
Your gods demeaned and desecrated.
Your intentions falsified.
I have seen your leper's ruling touch
Reach out to corrupt and maim.
And I wonder what it would be like to die for you.
Scheme | axxbxcdeexA afxexxxcea aeeexeffbbxdxxA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111111111 1111 11110 1111 1111 1101110 1011011 111101011110111 011111111 010 0110111111111 111111111111 1111 1111 1111 11110 11001110110101 111 1010110010110 110111111101 0110111111111 111111111111 11110 101110 1101010 11110 11111110111 11111010101 01111101101 11001 1101 110100010 101010 11111101 1110101 0110111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,143 |
Words | 241 |
Sentences | 28 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 10, 15 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 298 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 81 |
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"To Die For You" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/61650/to-die-for-you>.
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